Pallets of various types are known in the art. Typical pallets are constructed of wood and include parallel stringers to which transverse deck boards are then nailed or otherwise secured with metal fastener devices to form the pallet. Pallets need to have sufficient strength to withstand the weight of objects loaded thereon and other impact forces to which the pallets are subjected when objects are loaded onto them and when the pallets are moved, as by a fork-lift truck or the like.
In many pallets, pallets are damaged at their lead boards. As a fork lift or other mechanism is brought to engage a pallet, it will often impact the lead board of the pallet with significant force. This shearing force may disengage the lead board or otherwise damage it, yielding a worn or damaged pallet that may not work as well and may be dangerous to users and merchandise.
Also, as pallets are used, they can become worn and weakened, causing some of the stringers or deck boards to break or become at least partially detached, rendering the pallet inoperable or in a dangerous condition. The use of nails or other metal fastener devices can also render pallets dangerous. Many times, the damage to a pallet occurs where the metal nail goes into the wood. The use of metal fasteners can cause checking in the stringers or deck boards. Further faults include product damage or personal injury caused by exposed fasteners and inadequate joint stiffeners.
In an effort to save money and resources, the undamaged portions of worn or damaged pallets are often salvaged and reused in making recycled pallets, used as fuel or sawdust, or put to other uses. Those in the art have employed many methods in their attempts to salvage worn-out pallets by stripping or otherwise disassembling the stringers and deck boards from each other. However, many of these methods require costly machinery or a great deal of time and effort and put workers at significant safety risk. Nails and other metallic fasteners are often a great hindrance in efforts to disassemble pallets. The presence of, for example, nails prevents the use of standard saws or similar devices, which do not effectively cut through nails. Devices that are able to disassemble worn-out pallets that include nails face other disadvantages. First, they are often large, unwieldy and expensive. Second, often times the nails remain in the stringers or deck boards after disassembly. In order to reuse the boards in optimal condition, the nails need be removed, requiring additional time with attendant increased cost and expense.
More recently, companies who utilize pallets have turned to Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) technology to monitor and track pallet location and other information. To use such technology, encoded RFID tags or devices are placed on a pallet. As the pallet moves through distribution channels, RFID readers scan the devices. By, for example, placing a RFID reader at a dock door of a warehouse, a supplier and customer know when a pallet arrives. Wal-Mart has imposed RFID deadlines on its major suppliers. However, there have been problems implementing RFID systems. One problem that faces RFID technology is the ability to read metal products because metal can prevent RFID readers from operating properly. A pallet without metallic fasteners would thus be desired. Further, liquid inside of objects can absorb RF signals, making reading more difficult. It is thus desirable to have a wooden pallet that can be constructed with drier wood. However, nails and other metallic fasteners often cannot be used to construct a pallet with dry wood because they will cause checking and damage to the wood during construction.
In response to these problems, construction of pallets without utilizing metallic fasteners has been attempted. One such method uses only adhesives to connect stringers to deck boards. However, there are numerous disadvantages to such a pallet. One is that the connection is often times not strong enough to resist typical shearing or other forces. A second disadvantage to such a pallet is the required use of external clamps or similar devices to hold the pieces together while the glue sets. A third disadvantage of this technique is the waste of time between initial alignment and ultimate formation of the pallet. This waste of time stems from the requirement of waiting for the glue to set before use of the pallet. There thus exists a need for a pallet that can be readily and economically assembled, can withstand substantial impact and load forces, can be easily disassembled, including with dry wood, and will not interfere with RF signals or prevent RFID readers from operating properly.